A coalition of newspapers examining the effects of California’s Proposition 47 – the Desert Sun, Ventura County Star, Record Searchlight and Salinas Californian – found that the law had in fact scaled back mass incarceration of drug addicts, freeing at least 13,500 inmates. The investigation also found that Prop 47 had done little to help those freed to restart their lives:
“Instead, the unprecedented release of inmates has exposed the limits of California’s neglected social service programs: Thousands of addicts and mentally ill people have traded a life behind bars for a churning cycle of homelessness, substance abuse and petty crime.”
The newspapers also found:
- California police have dramatically deprioritized drug busts in the wake of Prop 47, arresting and citing about 22,000 fewer people in 2015, a 9.5 percent decrease in the first year since the possession of meth, heroin and cocaine was downgraded to a misdemeanor.
- Nearly 200,000 felony convictions have been retroactively erased by Prop 47 as of September, according to a first-ever analysis. Government agencies were not required to track how many convictions were reduced, so journalists gathered public records from 21 counties to calculate a statewide estimate. Many former felons will be slow to take advantage of their restored rights because they are unaware their convictions have been downgrade.-
- Prop 47 earmarked millions saved in prison costs for inmate rehabilitation, but not a penny has been spent. Meanwhile, the state’s shortage of treatment programs is more glaring than ever. Expanding rehab would be expensive, but it is still a cheaper, more effective and more humane strategy for addressing addiction than locking drug abusers in prison.